Mr Andrino’s wife, Fermanda Nascimento Rocha, recalled that she and her family began fervently praying for Mother Teresa’s intercession after receiving a relic of the nun on September 5 2008, after Mr Andrino began suffering from the effects of a viral brain infection.
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I am certainly thrilled, and definitely not surprised that Blessed Mother Teresa will be canonized on September 4, 2016.
The number of homes that the Missionaries of Charity run has grown to almost 750 in India and overseas, from the 600 that Mother Teresa left when she died in 1997.
Today Witczak says there are about 4,500 centers worldwide continuing the work of Mother Teresa, including hospices, orphanages, homes for people with AIDS and drug addictions, unwed mothers, etc.
My parents’ unwavering commitment to the poor in Bangalore was deeply shaped by the life and work of Mother Teresa. Fagan, who has painted and sculpted portraits of US presidents, said capturing the essence of the world famous nun was a daunting task, but he found his “hook” with a simple quote of hers that someone told him – “Joy is strength”. She served the poorest of the poor and founded her order, the Missionaries of Charity.
“Mother gave me a destiny to have a different life”. It’s very common for people, even people who have strong spiritual lives, to go through periods of darkness or doubts. His account of her gentle humility and sense of humor coupled with a no-nonsense firmness when it came to her work are stories I never grow exhausted of hearing. “Mostly I cook, help prep the food. mop the floors when we finish also”.
Roberson says you measure a man or a woman by how they treat others who have no one to speak for them. Mother Teresa was the voice of the poor and her voice still speaks to volunteers like him and others.
Although Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said Indians felt “proud” about the canonisation, the head of a Hindu grassroots movement that supports his government provoked controversy a year ago by accusing Mother Teresa of seeking to convert people to Christianity. In some ways she stood out because she was in such a profoundly non-Christian context; in Latin America, in Africa, there’s a much stronger Church presence. We don’t look down on anyone.
In 2003, Mother Teresa was beatified by the late Pope John Paul II.
He calls his two children “the extension of that miracle”. She had visited the town to inaugurate Missionaries of Charity’s new home in Salem Tabri neighborhood on Jalandhar Byepass.
At the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C., back in 1994, Mother Teresa did not shy away from discussing something not everyone in the room was comfortable with – the issue of abortion. The office of the “devil’s advocate” (a canon lawyer whose job it was to find fault with the cause) was eliminated.
It was the final step needed to canonise the nun who cared for the poorest of the poor.
FILE – Mother Theresa leaves Scripps Clinic in San Diego California with her primary doctor Patricia Aubanel (L) Janurary 15, 1992. They lived sacrificially loving lives.
He said issuing of the stamp is a gesture of respect and gratitude for the Nobel laureate nun for her exemplary humanitarian service towards the mankind.
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But it was not praise always for her – she had her detractors, specially polemic essayist Christopher Hitchens, who also testified during her beatification process, right-wing Hindu outfits, and more recently, Indian-origin British author and “militant atheist” Aroup Chatterjee, who have criticised her methods, motives and management, as well as adherence to church dogma on issues like abortion, divorce and contraception. Afterward, she sought him out again to chat and signed his copy of Malcolm Muggeridge’s book Something Beautiful for God, “which remains a prized possession”.
